[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 83 (Wednesday, May 17, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1693-S1697]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Border Security
Mrs. CAPITO. Madam President, I rise today to again speak on the
multifaceted crisis that has defined our southern border and how the
inaction and misleading rhetoric from President Biden and his
administration has only exacerbated the continued fallout our country
is experiencing.
Since the beginning of his tenure in the White House, President
Biden's trademark has been border chaos with over 6.3 million illegal
border crossings under his watch. Actions do speak louder than words,
and President Biden continues to prove that his priorities are miles
and miles away from the southern border. He has only visited the
southern border once since becoming President. He has supported funding
cuts to the Department of Homeland Security in his recent budget
proposal; and that Department is charged with securing the border.
Our Border Patrol agents deserve needed support from the
administration who has laid the crisis they face squarely at their
feet. In this past week, according to the U.S. Border Patrol, there
have been 67,759 apprehensions, 15,780 approximate ``get-aways,'' 179
pounds of meth, 56 pounds of fentanyl, and 34 pounds of cocaine--all
seized at our southern border in just 168 hours.
With our Border Patrol stretched inconceivably thin with little
support from the administration, it is hard to fathom the true amount
of illegal crossings, human trafficking, and illegal drugs that are
currently entering our country through the southern border.
On top of all this, on Sunday, a person on the U.S. terror watchlist
was arrested at the U.S.-Mexico border crossing in San Diego. This
further proves the national security implications regarding this border
crisis and the message displayed to the world about the State of our
ports of entry.
The impact of the unprecedented amount of drugs entering through our
southern border is certainly not lost on me either, nor anyone in this
body. My State of West Virginia has seen the impact of this crisis
directly, and it has created irreversible scars on our communities.
I just mentioned 56 pounds of fentanyl has been seized just last week
alone. That is enough fentanyl to kill 12 million Americans. Recent
data from the CDC shows that between 2016 and 2021, fentanyl overdoses
have risen 279 percent in this country. Those between the ages of 24
through 44 have the highest overdose rates, and those involved
fentanyl.
Through conversations I have had on this topic with the Biden
administration officials, I have found their answers to be highly
insufficient. This is a crisis that is killing a generation, and we
know that these drugs are flowing across our southern border. The
administration needs a better answer, and they must swiftly act to stop
this killer.
Now as the title 42 authority has expired, it has added to the
confusion on the southern border. The Biden administration is trying to
reset a new normal based on failed policies as an attempt to redefine
and hide their border failures. Trust me, the American people are not
fooled by the recent victory lap taken by the Biden administration or
their effort to claim success or progress. To the Biden administration,
what they consider low numbers still far exceed the daily average of
the prior administration. In fact, if illegal crossings continue at the
levels that the administration is tallying, this White House is on
track to break the previous record they set last year for the number of
illegal immigrants caught at the border. This is not lost on the
American people.
Unfortunately, this is a habit we have kind of seen from this
President. We saw similar messaging antics from the administration
regarding gas prices when they touted decreases that still put us above
the average before President Biden even took office. The same goes for
inflation, which saw record increases only after Democrats'
supercharged spending. Yes, it came down, but it is still way, way too
high.
Mitigating the border crisis is an ongoing effort and one we have to
monitor closely. For example, will the administration's actions of the
past week create a massive backlog of asylum claims? What does that do
to our system? It only adds to the issue of interior enforcement,
something the Biden administration has clearly never prioritized.
Despite the President's too-little, too-late action, our border
remains open. I know with certainty that once someone enters our
country, the chances of them being expelled are very, very low. As we
move forward, the situation of the border needs to be tightly watched,
and it needs to be tracked over time if it deviates based on many
different factors and changes to policies that we are currently
experiencing. But above all else, we have to remain committed to
policies that do secure the border, policies that protect our
communities.
I don't know how these border communities are doing it. I really
don't. Policies that support our Border Patrol officers and policies
that prevent the unprecedented humanitarian tragedy that has become the
custom over the past several years--whether it is the drug influx, the
human trafficking, and just the human sorrow that we see that this has
generated.
My Republican colleagues and I remain committed to this mission, and
I encourage the Biden administration to do the same.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I am here today to join my colleague
from West Virginia and others in, again, calling on the administration
to secure our southern border.
Last Thursday, I traveled to Brownsville, TX, with my colleagues to
show support for the Border Patrol agents and see firsthand the
situation at the border as title 42 expires. I traveled repeatedly to
the southern border; and each time I go, I see more and more people
coming across illegally.
I have been to McAllen; I have been to Del Rio; I have been to Eagle
Pass; I have been to El Paso, Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala, Colombia--
both sides of the border. As I go each time, more and more people are
crossing the border illegally.
In the 3 days leading up to the end of title 42, Border Patrol
reported 10,000-plus encounters each day and almost 83,000 for the
week. In the first 6 months of fiscal year 2023, CBP encountered more
than 1.5 million individuals--that is 6 months--1.5 million individuals
in 6 months. That compares to about 2\1/2\ million crossings illegally
last year. That means, at the pace we are on, it will be more than 3
million coming illegally this year.
This truly is a crisis, and it is one that has been caused by the
Biden administration's unwillingness to enforce the law and reinstate
policies that have been shown very clearly to work in the last
administration.
[[Page S1694]]
In Brownsville, we saw the crisis firsthand. And we met with Border
Patrol professionals who told us what needs to happen to stop the flow
of illegal immigration. And we can get a handle on this right now if
the Biden administration will simply enforce the law. We know this from
our Border Patrol professionals, the experts on the frontline. They are
the ones telling us this. That includes enforcing the migrant
protection protocols--MPP--or the ``Remain in Mexico'' policy, which
would require people seeking asylum at the southern border to wait in
Mexico while their case is adjudicated, and enforcing the Safe Third
Country protocols--again, as the prior administration did--so that
individuals seeking asylum from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and
other countries must wait for their claim to be adjudicated before they
come into the country.
But instead of requiring individuals seeking asylum to remain in
Mexico or to submit an asylum claim in the first safe country they
cross into, the Biden administration is creating a demand pull for
these individuals because they not only allow them to cross illegally
and come into the country, but they allow them to stay in the country
illegally, and they also provide a work permit and benefits.
So when Secretary Mayorkas says: Oh, the border is closed, that is
not the message that goes to South America. And, now, actually, more
than 100 countries where people are coming across our border illegally
from more than 100 different countries. The message that the coyotes
and others tell the people that they are trafficking across the border
is: We will get you into the country. You will be able to stay. You
will get a work permit and you will get benefits.
So, of course, they are going to come, and they continue to come. And
what the Biden administration is doing is they just process them
faster. They just process them faster. With the expiration of title 42,
Alejandro Mayorkas says he is enforcing title 8, but he is not.
Here is what he is doing: When individuals come across the border
illegally, initially, he is saying, under title 8: Well, you have to
have an asylum claim, and that has to be adjudicated; so you can't
stay.
All that individual has to do is say: I want to appeal that, and they
get a preliminary hearing. They are given a phone number. They don't
even have to go to the hearing. They are given a phone number. They
call the court, and they say: OK. I am appealing the claim; I am here
for asylum. And they are given an alien identification number, they get
a work permit, and they get benefits. They don't have to go to the
court. Their hearing is just calling up on the phone. Then they are
scheduled for a court date 3 years, 5 years down the line while they
are in the country. That is not enforcing title 8.
And that is why more and more people are coming. That is why 2\1/2\-
plus million came last year, and there will be 3 million-plus coming
this year.
What are you seeing around the country? Now in New York, they are
putting migrants who come here illegally in gymnasiums in schools. What
is it, 20 schools? And Mayor Adams complains about Governor Abbott
sending people up to him. Well, Mayor Adams should call the White House
because the White House has sent up 10 times as many people as Governor
Abbott has. So maybe he is complaining about the wrong person. But that
is what is going on.
How about fentanyl? How about the drugs that are pouring into our
country illegally, affecting every State? How about human trafficking?
How about human trafficking? How about all the things that are
happening to these people as they are coming up here in the hands of
the coyotes? How about the people who don't have $8,000 to $12,000 to
pay the coyotes, to pay the cartels to come here? What do you suppose
happens when they get here, that the coyotes and cartels say: Oh, that
is fine, don't worry about paying back that $8,000 or that $12,000--not
only for you but for your kids. Or maybe they are indentured servants
until they can pay off that debt.
And how do they pay off that debt? What do they have to do? What are
they bound to when they are up here? That is the kind of human
suffering that is being created by this border policy, and the reality
is it can end right now. It can end right now.
The Biden administration says: Well, Congress needs to pass a law.
Well, what good does it do for Congress to pass a law if the Biden
administration won't enforce the laws they have right now? We are a
compassionate country. We allow 1 million people--1 million people--to
come here every year, legally. But we have got to enforce our border,
and that is not being done. And every American needs to understand that
the Biden administration doesn't need more tools or more laws to secure
the border. They have the tools. They have the law to do it. They just
won't; they want an open border.
Border security is national security. You are seeing that impact. You
are seeing people come from more than 100 different countries. A lot of
those people aren't vetted, and that doesn't even count the ``got-
aways,'' the people who cross between the ports of entry whom our
Border Patrol professionals don't have time to stop because they are so
busy processing more and more and more migrants that come here
illegally under the Biden administration's policies.
It is way past time to end the border crisis that the Biden
administration has created. Border security is national security.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. MARSHALL. Madam President, ``The border is not open.''
``The border is not open.'' That is what DHS Secretary Mayorkas told
the American people repeatedly. I guess that is pretty easy to say when
you are sitting in your office in Washington, DC, but I rise to tell
the truth to the American people.
Just recently, I led a group of Senators to the epicenter of this
crisis in Brownsville, TX, on the eve title 42 was being lifted. Why
Brownsville, you might ask, because that is where the cartel had moved
the mass migration to. I reckon that was the easiest way to get all the
people from Venezuela that they had recruited to come to America; that
was the easiest, the most economical route to get them to the border
was from Venezuela to Brownsville, TX.
I have to tell you, it is worse than I expected. The scene was bleak;
the morale was at an all-time low. And there was no sign of this crisis
ending anytime soon. At least that is what was going on, on our side of
the border. On the other side of the border, these migrants were
celebrating. They were having a party. The worst part of their journey
was over.
We toured Camp Monument. Now, Camp Monument was a park just weeks
before, but the Border Patrol had come in there and set up an emergency
command post.
Now, again, the DHS Secretary is telling us the border isn't open,
but this is what the Border Patrol told us: Just the day before, 11,000
illegal migrants had been recorded at this location alone and more than
3,000 ``got-aways'' the same day--3,000 ``got-aways.'' If you put those
two together, that is the size of my hometown, Great Bend, America.
Now, we saw this week with the arrest of the Afghani on the Terrorist
Watchlist in California, these ``got-aways'' undoubtedly include
terrorists, convicted criminals, and the cartels' drug smugglers.
In fact, something, again, new on this trip--this was my fourth trip
to the border--something new, they were averaging 90 Chinese military-
aged nationalists crossing in the Rio Grande Valley every day, 90
Chinese nationalists every day crossing our border.
Probably the saddest thing I have heard about from the Border Patrol
is they shared the horrific situation and the repeated sexual assault
young women are enduring to come here. They compared it to a never-
ending cycle of ``sex slavery''--that was their term--sex slavery by
the cartels. In fact, the cartel had made $13 billion last year in the
sex trade industry. And they told us that these young ladies enter a
lifetime of debt to their criminal traffickers. So many other people
turned into indentured servants.
These smugglers are also bringing in lethal fentanyl that is
poisoning our children, 300 young adults dying every day in America
from fentanyl poisoning brought across our southern border.
[[Page S1695]]
The data we received--and the briefing was given to us by the Border
Patrol, by local law enforcement, and the CBP--do not reflect a border
that is closed, far, far from being closed. It is a border that has
been erased by failed leadership in the White House.
Under the current circumstances, only 10 percent of the Border Patrol
agents are actually tasked with securing the border, only 10 percent of
them are doing the job they were hired to do. The other officers, they
are tasked with running the refugee camp, acting as nurses and social
workers.
But it didn't have to be this way; it doesn't have to be this way. On
every trip, I have asked the Border Patrol: What do you need? And in
past trips, they have talked about, ``We need more doctors; we need
more dentists; we need more help, more cooks.''
But this time, they didn't ask for more officers or resources. What
they specifically asked for were policy changes from this
administration. They asked for policy changes from this administration.
These are people on the ground. These are the people who have been
doing it--again, multigenerational officers whose fathers and
grandparents had patrolled these same borders. They asked for policy
changes.
Secretary Mayorkas has stripped them--the Border Patrol--of the tools
they need to secure our border. What they asked was to reinstate the
``Remain in Mexico'' policy and end catch-and-release. It is that
simple.
This could be all accomplished with the President's pen. He created
this crisis. He can end it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
Mr. YOUNG. Madam President, ``much better than you all expected.''
That is what President Biden said when asked about the conditions at
the border after the expiration of title 42. ``Much better than you all
expected.''
At the end of a week that saw a record 10,000 illegal crossings a
day, he says, ``much better than you all expected.''
Those were just the ones that were stopped by the U.S. Customs and
Border Protection. The President's statement is clearly disconnected
from the on-the-ground reality at our border. Everyone knows that. And
as far as I can tell, the Biden administration's policy, when it comes
to the southern border, is largely to do the opposite of what the
previous administration did.
This is the ``Costanza'' policy of border security. Whatever the
previous President did, do the opposite. Within his first 100 days in
office, President Biden stopped construction of the border wall, but he
didn't stop there. He halted deportations, but he didn't stop there. He
suspended the ``Remain in Mexico'' policy. As a result of these and
other actions, there have been at least 6.4 million--6.4 million--
illegal border crossings at the southern border since the President
assumed office.
Now, to put that in perspective--and this is just the number of
people whom we have seen and been able to track come across the border
illegally, so we know there are far more--but I represent a State, the
great State of Indiana, where the population is 6.8 million.
That is a whole lot of people. Since 2021, hundreds of thousands of
children have been trafficked across the southern border. Eighty-five
thousand unaccompanied children are now missing. Last year, overworked
and underappreciated Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 12,000
illegal immigrants who had already been convicted of a crime. Again,
just the ones we have been able to apprehend.
This year, this year so far, those agents have stopped 82 people,
according to my most recent count, from crossing the border, and they
are on the terror watchlist.
Fentanyl smuggled across the border from Mexico is now the leading
cause of death for Americans between ages 18 and 49. Record numbers of
migrants are dying, swept away in the currents of the Rio Grande. So
many, in fact, that law enforcement has to keep refrigerated trucks at
the ready to store the drowned bodies.
The administration pretends that its lax border policy is somehow
humane. It is the benighted, ultra-MAGA conservatives, the mean
Republicans, in this vision who are inhumane.
Well, I have to say, swamping our law enforcement officers,
overwhelming our resources, allowing lethal drugs to spread through our
communities, not discouraging migrants from a deadly journey to the
border, this is inhumane.
And saying so and demanding a measure of border security is not anti-
immigrant. It is pro-American.
These are not Republican talking points; these are the sentiments of
regular Americans. The failure to plan for the end of title 42 to
enforce our immigration laws to secure the southern border is a
disaster. Americans, no matter their political party, know it. But the
President of the United States does not seem to understand.
In New York City, where illegal migrants have displaced homeless
veterans in hotels, Mayor Eric Adams said: ``The President and the
White House have failed this city.''
The truth is, when it comes to the border, the President and the
White House have failed this country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I am pleased to join with my colleagues
to talk about a topic that I have talked about many times before on the
floor of the U.S. Senate. Obviously, coming from a border State, the
humanitarian, the public safety crisis occurring at our border, which
has raged for the last 2 years under this President, has finally made
every State a border State, every city a border city because the entire
Nation is feeling the impact of the open border policies of the Biden
administration because migrants are being shipped to places like
Chicago, New York, Washington, DC. And so the mayors are saying: Whoa,
we can't take this, even though border communities in Texas have
encountered 5 million migrants during the Biden administration.
(Mr. REED assumed the Chair.)
I am sympathetic, but there is no sympathy. And, actually, we don't
really want sympathy; we want action to deal with this influx of
humanity that will soon become a tsunami.
As I said, since the President took office, Customs and Border
Protection have logged about 5 million border crossings. Because of
COVID-19, there was a public health law in place, title 42, which we
have talked about many times, which was applied by the Border Patrol to
expel 2.4 million of those 5 million migrants.
I know the numbers get a little tricky here. But at the same time
Border Patrol has said they encountered 5 million migrants during the
Biden administration, they also say that perhaps as many as 1.2 million
migrants got away. In other words, they were seen on sensors or
cameras, but the Border Patrol missed them or they simply evaded Border
Patrol because either they were involved in some sort of criminal
activity or they did not want to get detained because perhaps they
didn't qualify for asylum.
So up until last week, under title 42, the Border Patrol was able to
quickly expel illegal migrants who had no legal basis to stay in the
United States. Title 42 is gone, which means that nearly 50 percent of
migrants whom Border Patrol actually encountered and were able to expel
under that rule--they no longer are able to do that.
It is nearly impossible to get an explanation from the Biden
administration about where the remaining 2.7 million migrants are. What
we do know is that the Biden administration is releasing an
unprecedented number of these migrants into the interior of the United
States.
Some of them--if you have good vision, you can see the green part of
these bars. These are people who are claiming asylum. It is really a
rather small part of this total number. So far, in March, we are
exceeding 100,000 migrants at the border.
A relatively small number are claiming asylum. So what happened to
the rest of them? Well, there is something called parole, p-a-r-o-l-e.
We may think of parole as something that--if someone has been in prison
and they get parole, but this is different. This is something that
Customs and Border Protection does. They claim the authority to do this
on a categorical basis simply to relieve the load on law enforcement
officials and customs officials at the border.
[[Page S1696]]
Effectively, what this means is even if people aren't claiming
asylum--at least a small fraction we know would have an opportunity to
present their case in front of an immigration judge, and a small
fraction of the total number would perhaps be able to prove their right
to asylum under the law.
The Biden administration has said: We don't really care whether
people are seeking asylum or not. We are going to release them into the
interior of the United States using parole and tell them to show up at
an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in a town near you and
make arrangements for their case to be processed there at the local
level.
There have been some recent developments. In Florida, a Federal judge
has now enjoined Customs and Border Protection's ability to use parole
or, I should say, abuse parole by releasing mass numbers of migrants,
perhaps never to be heard from again. The judge has said essentially
that parole should be used on a case-by-case basis, not to relieve the
load at the border because so many people are showing up.
You know, charitably, maybe that is what Secretary Mayorkas means
when he says the border is secure. In some sort of twisted way, he
thinks 5 million people coming to the border and another 2.7 million of
those people being released into the interior of the United States
somehow means the border is secure. Well, not under any rational
definition of ``border security'' is the border secure.
So what is the Biden administration supposed to do? Back when
President Clinton was in office, he signed into law an authority called
expedited removal. This would allow the Border Patrol to remove people
on an expedited basis. But it takes a little time, so historically what
has happened is those people have been detained until their expedited
removal is accomplished. But this administration has dismantled the
detention facilities necessary to keep people while their expedited
removal process is going forward. Instead, they are released.
You heard people talk about catch and release. That is catch and
release. That is the big hole in the bottom of the bucket through which
this vast sea of humanity is flowing.
Truth be told, there is a lot the administration doesn't know or
simply isn't telling the American people about where these migrants are
today.
Recently, the New York Times did an investigative piece about some of
the unaccompanied children who have been released by the Biden
administration into the interior of the country and documented the fact
that many of them are in positions where they are performing forced
labor, violating child labor laws. Unable to protect themselves, unable
to provide for themselves, they are simply being forced to work, in
violation of child labor laws. They have no, apparently, adult
supervision--no responsible adult supervision--to protect them.
In a strange sense, that may be the least bad thing that can happen
to some of these unaccompanied children. Others, I am sure, have been
recruited into gangs, have been neglected, abused, sexually assaulted,
sold into sex slavery. It just boggles the mind.
I keep asking myself, what is it going to take? What has to happen
before the Biden administration wakes up to its failures on the border
and the human consequences associated with it?
I haven't even mentioned--the Senator from Indiana did mention the
fact that across these same borders, while this flood of humanity is
coming across, Border Patrol is distracted or preoccupied with
administrative tasks. So the drugs that have killed 108,000 Americans
have come across those borders, including 71,000 last year from
synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
Well, now that title 42 has expired, the number of people coming
across is going to skyrocket. I have been sort of strangely amused at
some of the press reports that say: Well, the numbers weren't as bad as
we expected. I think maybe that is what President Biden said--oh, it
wasn't as bad as we expected.
Well, these criminal organizations that transport migrants to the
border and that also smuggle drugs into the United States are not
stupid, and they realize that the eyes of the world--certainly of our
country--were on the border to see, OK, now that title 42 has gone
away, what is going to happen? Well, they just simply restricted the
number of migrants they transported to the border in order to make it
look like there was not a surge. But we already know that 10,000
migrants a day are being encountered. One Border Patrol agent said he
thought that would go up to 11,000 to 14,000 a day.
The Biden administration has gone to great lengths not to secure the
border but to make it easier for migrants to be released into the
interior of the United States. Earlier this year, for example, the
administration announced a new plan to address a specific subset of the
border crisis--the way migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and
Venezuela were treated. What the administration said is this: We are
not going to secure the border. We are not going to prevent illegal
immigration. We are actually going to confer legal status on 30,000
migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela each month--30,000
a month--and then we are going to take that out of the top number so it
makes it look like we actually have less migrants coming into the
country illegally.
Well, 30,000 a month, 360,000 a year, without Congress's consultation
or consent. We are a coequal branch of government. The President has no
authority to do that on his own.
Last week, the administration finalized a rule to funnel even more
migrants into parole--which, as I said, is being abused; it is supposed
to be done on a case-by-case basis--to release even more migrants into
the interior of the country.
It is interesting the way rules and laws are named here in Washington
because frequently they are the opposite of what they claim to be. So
the administration has issued a new rule called the circumvention of
lawful pathways rule, framed as a way to promote orderly migration and
ensure those who don't play by the rules are ineligible for asylum.
In addition to the fundamentally false premise that these parole
programs constitute lawful pathways--they don't--the rule is brimming
with loopholes that were designed to give migrants a clear and easy
path into the United States. It is a roadmap. All migrants have to do
is claim that they are illiterate or say they experienced technical
issues with the CBP One app that the administration wants them to use
to schedule their appearance at the border. Well, the administration
says they can still be paroled into the United States and given a work
permit. Talk about a pull factor.
You know, we hear a lot about the push factors of illegal
immigration. Those are real--violence, poverty. We all understand that.
People want a better way of life. But we admit--we naturalize or make
American citizens out of 1 million migrants a year. But turning this
process over to the criminal organizations and cartels that smuggle not
only people but drugs into the United States has proven to be an
absolute humanitarian disaster.
By outlining broad exceptions that are easily gamed, the Biden
administration has provided migrants and the cartels that exploit them
with a playbook. They can make the dangerous journey to the border,
show up at a port of entry without an appointment, say the magic words,
and be released into the United States courtesy of the Biden
administration; or they can cross between the ports of entry and claim
to face an imminent and extreme threat to their life or safety in
Northern Mexico and be waved into the United States as well.
Day after day, the Biden administration is allowing more and more
migrants to enter the United States despite the fact that the vast
majority of these individuals have no legal basis to be here. At the
same time, the administration is doing less and less to enforce the law
and to remove those who have no valid asylum claims in the United
States.
As you can see here, this is--Immigration and Customs Enforcement is
the Federal Agency responsible for removing people who have illegally
come to the United States. As you can see, in fiscal year 2019, it was
over a quarter of a million. In fiscal year 2020, it was just under
200,000. In fiscal year 2021, it was just over 50,000. In fiscal year
2022, it was about 75,000. So not only has President Biden opened the
front door, he has closed the back door when it comes to removing
people who have no
[[Page S1697]]
legal right to be here in the United States.
Well, this isn't an accident. This is deliberate. This is a plan. And
it is an outrage.
This is all part of a deliberate effort. I have tried to figure it
out. OK, maybe the Biden administration doesn't understand or maybe we
just have a different interpretation of the law, but I have come to
conclude that that is not true, that it can't possibly be true. So my
only conclusion is that this is part of a deliberate plan: You let more
people in, and you remove fewer people who cannot legally be present
here in the United States.
The circumvention of lawful pathways rule is dangerous, and it is not
a serious effort to secure the border; it is a figleaf. And I will be
introducing a Congressional Review Act resolution to strike it down.
This rule is part of the Biden administration's shell game to conceal
the unprecedented level of illegal immigration on their watch. Because
of the loopholes, it will fail to deliver the serious consequences that
the administration claims, and it will fail to deter people from making
the long and dangerous journey to our border when they have no legal
claim to enter our country.
So I hope the Senate will soon vote to strike down this rule and send
a clear message to President Biden that his job is to enforce the law
as written.
I agree with the Senator from North Dakota, Senator Hoeven, when he
says the President has the tools. I mentioned expedited removal, which
President Bill Clinton signed into law. The President just simply
refuses to do the job he took an oath to do--to uphold and defend the
Constitution and laws of the United States. He has no authority to
rewrite the laws through executive actions or rulemaking, and I hope
the Senate will say so when we vote on the congressional resolution of
disapproval.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to
10 minutes prior to the scheduled rollcall vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I, too, rise to make known my concerns with
the administration's decision to terminate the use of title 42
authority to protect our borders. I particularly make this point at a
time at which it is clear that what was to follow the use of title 42
is not in place.
I visited the southern border with the Senator from Texas, who was
just speaking, in January. I had several additional visits to that
border while title 42 was in place. It was useful and valuable for me
to see the nature of the problem and the challenges over the last
several years. But it is also true that I can see the consequences of
what is taking place on our borders in my own home State of Kansas.
When I was at the border, I talked with Federal law enforcement
officials. They have risen to the challenge of apprehending and vetting
and documenting hundreds of thousands of migrants. However, the
situation at the southern border has been made more difficult for the
DEA to interdict the cartels and drug smugglers and for the FBI to vet
national security threats.
Repealing title 42 without having a robust plan of action has left
our law enforcement agents with a disastrous situation at the border.
Our Border Patrol agents and officers are being asked to be caretakers,
law enforcement, medical professionals, and so much more.
The fact of the matter is that our country does not have operational
control of the border, and it will continue to fail to do so if we
continue down the current path.
The U.S. Border Patrol apprehended more than 1 million migrants who
crossed illegally between just October and March, and it detained more
than 2.2 million migrants during all of fiscal year 2022. Agents have
been averaging about 1,100 arrests a day this month at the El Paso
sector, and on Wednesday of last week, more than 2,000 migrants were
arrested in the one section alone. Often, we think of border challenges
as being someone coming to take our jobs. Perhaps there is a component
of that, but we ought to be focused on terrorism, national security,
drugs, law enforcement, and human trafficking.
Fentanyl seizures at the southern border increased 48 percent in
April of 2022 compared to April of 2021. The situation at our southern
border is a danger to our national security as border agents are pulled
away to deal with the record number of migrants and are left without
the manpower to try and stop drug trafficking and human trafficking.
President Biden must act to ensure a stricter enforcement of our
immigration laws, reinstate the construction of a wall or fencing in
areas that are largely unprotected, and the administration must send a
message loud and clear that our border is closed to unlawful entrants.
The United States is a nation of migrants, and we are a nation of
refugees, but we are also a nation of law and order. Migrants who are
camping on the streets of El Paso, in scorching heat; mothers wading
across rushing rivers, clinging to their infants; and girls caught by
traffickers and cartels out in the desert are consequences of a
disastrous border policy.
The President's and his Secretary's handling of this crisis at the
southern border is unacceptable. Congress must work together to deliver
lasting solutions that secure our border, keep our communities safe,
and ensure the humane treatment of people.
Securing our southern border isn't a Republican or a Democratic
issue. It isn't a Texas or an Arizona issue. It isn't just a U.S. or a
Mexico issue. Every State is a border State, including my own of
Kansas.
If we truly want to help migrants, then we need to create a fair and
humane asylum process, and we need to stop the illegal crossings at the
southern border that undermine our laws and jeopardize our national
security. Americans--Kansans--are tired of paying the cost of inaction
to make any serious policy changes at the southern border.
The administration has made it clear that it is unwilling to take the
meaningful action necessary. While it is easy to criticize the
administration, let me also say that it also means that it is up to
this Congress, this legislative body, to work together to find
solutions in this regard--solutions that ensure our national safety,
establish a humane asylum process, and end the crisis at the southern
border.
I yield the floor.